Tribeca 2012

Here is a little ditty about Jack (Riley Keough) and Diane (Juno Temple)… (Sorry, I have not been able to get that damn John Cougar Mellencamp song out of my head lately…) When Jack and Diane’s eyes first meet, it is love at first sight. Their chemistry is electric until… After staying out all night with Jack, Diane is grounded by her aunt (Cara Seymour). Knowing that she must attend a fashion program in Paris in a few weeks, Diane does not let her punishment stop her from spending time with Jack. The problem is, Diane never told Jack that this is just a temporary visit.

Bradley Rust Gray’s Jack and Diane is an intense and metaphoric study of young love. Just as the Zoe Kazan character from Gray’s The Exploding Girl expressed her emotions by way of convulsive seizures, the love between Jack and Diane is so explosive that it causes blood to gush from various orifices and prompts a recurring dream about a horrific, organ-devouring beast. The strength of Jack and Diane is in its incredibly normal representation of the love between two teenage girls. Juno Temple’s uber-girlie Diane is far from a stereotypical lesbian, so much so that I was unsure for the longest time whether or not she actually knew Jack’s true gender.